Something that bothers me about a lot of people’s sense of empathy is that they’re only able to employ it by directly relating events to themselves. It’s like a stereotypical “How would you feel if this happened to your daughter?” thing, where people can only extend empathy as far as a situation that it’s possible for them to get into.

I also hear this a lot around disasters, whether they be natural, terrorist attacks, etc. If you’re around somebody who has been anywhere near the location of the event, get ready for the “Gosh, that’s so awful. I was only there six years ago, it could have been me.” Can’t you just fucking care about the wellbeing of things that aren’t you? Feel bad because a bad thing happened, not by making it about yourself.

God this is true, there’s a staggering amount of people that lack it. So much selfishness as well

I frequently do blatantly inaccurate math just to spitball, and when I say the numbers that I’m computing out loud, people get amazed that I can keep track of so many numbers when I’m only tracking the result of the previous calculation and the operator that I’m about to perform.

I’m like, dude, if you accounted for the rounding errors, you would realize how fucking wrong I am, but this math is not precision-important, and so I’m just trying to get an idea of the scope of the numbers that I need to address whatever problem I’m working on.

For instance, if you asked me to spitball how far it is from Los Angeles, California to Atlanta, Georgia, and how long it would take you to drive that, I would assume you would average about 50 miles an hour after breaks and whatnot that you would be able to drive approximately 12 hours a day, which means you could clear 600 miles, and off the top of my head I would guess it’s about 3,200 miles between Los Angeles and Atlanta, assuming that you stay on the 40 as much as you can once you get to Amarillo, TX, so I would assume that the average driver would take five days and approximately four hours to drive that distance.

This is very off the cuff, off the top of my head, I could be 600 miles off on the distance in either directions, I could be 10, 12 miles an hour in drive time off in either direction, and I could be off 4 or 5 hours or not even account for a co-driver on the trip.

You can do the trip in like 2ish days. I have done the trip in like twoish days.

But, reality and guesstimation are two separate things, and there’s no reason to be amazed by somebody’s guesstimation capabilities. It’s very basic math that doesn’t require any skill greater than your multiplication tables.

I don’t know why more people aren’t good at it.

I’m an engineer by training which includes a lot of higher math training. Also have been running my own company for years. But still learned this basic stuff way later. This is something that should taught in school.

Where I live this skill is normal. I was on vacation to the usa once, and people were amazed I could add two digit numbers at an arcade. I only realized how odd that was in retrospecr

Same for apps and sites. Having to explain to someone multiple times that I’m not trying to force their users to be bilingual just because there is “lorem ipsum” text on the page is rough.

Eh, it depends. I don’t know how to sew, except to fix a hole in my sock. Couldn’t make a coat, never needed or wanted to.
My mother can’t use a computer besides checking her emails and finding a movie to watch, which is all she needs and wants to know.
Now, if it’s your job to use one effectively and haven’t got a clue? I expect you’d end up in management in no time.

Agreed, fast fashion and it’s equivalents have pretty much killed off basic repair in general. My great grandmother taught me how to rewire a lamp, and I think I’m the only person in my friend group that can do it. Most people just toss them when they stop working.

Nana was in her early 20s when the great depression hit, and her influence is probably why I’m so in favor of right-to-repair.

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Haha I’m neurodiverse

Edit: thus the spelling errors

To be fair, many people don’t know how to give constructive feedback very well either.

Yep and it can be difficult to tell if someone’s reacting badly because they’re vulnerable or because they’re a twat.

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Haha ain’t that the truth!

Why do so many people misconstrue “common sense” for “stuff that feels right or obvious to me personally”

I think in a modern setting “common sense” refers to easily to understand lessons and concepts, but they still need to be taught. For me, it’s common sense to perform proprioceptive rehab on a sprained ankle to restore function after immobilisation, but that’s hardly common sense for everyone.

That I’ve been shown. But even with a fire bow from materials in the woods I can’t. In some places there is the occasional rock that sparks when hit, but I’ve never used that.

To be fair I’ve never taken that too seriously. I didn’t think and still think I’ll likely never need such a skill

This. Weirdly enough autistic people seem to struggle less here. Perhaps because they tend to be more literal in their choice of words?

I was on a paddle board a summer or two back, and noticed someone swimming with their really tall, inflatable kayak that they had been fishing off of. For some reason, they were dragging it through the water in one of our lakes.

I felt stupid, but I paddled over to them and asked if they were okay, as they were out in the middle of the huge lake.

He actually said “No, I don’t know how to swim, and can’t get back into my kayak” which made me ashen-faced, and I helped him onto my paddle board and back into his kayak. Thank fucking God he had a lifejacket on. He was probably about 700 feet offshore and fell overboard much earlier. Had he not had that lifejacket, he might have drowned. He never called for help as he was embarrassed.

I’m one of then. I had to ask !dadforaminute@lemmy.world how to put pictures up cos I had no clue. They told me about sticky hooks! 😃